


one coffee, black like my soul

by immolationfox



Category: Nikolai Series - Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Crack, F/M, Gen, Kaz Brekker v Zoya Nazyalensky: One-sided Rivalry, M/M, Not tagging ships bc they aren't the focus of the fic, POV Kaz Brekker, Rated T for swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24056632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immolationfox/pseuds/immolationfox
Summary: There wasn't much Kaz Brekker hated more than customers who wouldn't hang up the phone when ordering. Pretentious, overly complicated drinks were a close second.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker & Inej Ghafa & Jesper Fahey & Nina Zenik & Wylan van Eck, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Nikolai Lantsov & Zoya Nazyalensky
Comments: 23
Kudos: 94





	one coffee, black like my soul

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. lord this is probably the crackiest thing ive ever written istg this was so much fun to write
> 
> 2\. this is for the grishaverse minibang event. i kinda consider it a warm-up for the main event :D

It was  _ too. _ fucking. early.

"Kaz, it's practically seven," Inej said, bagging three muffins and a scone with practiced efficiency.

"For this," Kaz growled, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the long line to the door. "It's too fucking early for  _ this." _

"Suck it up, Brekker," Nina said through a fake smile as she slid three coffee cups onto the pick-up counter and called, "Caramel macchiato, small iced coffee, and a large black coffee for Adrik!"

"We should limit how many people can be inside at one time," Kaz mumbled under his breath as he waited for the next customer to make up their mind.

"We do," Inej hissed as she passed. "It's called the occupancy limit."

The customer stepped up to counter and ordered only a large coffee with room for cream after staring at the food menu for three minutes. Jesper and Kaz swapped places so Kaz could fix the coffee and Kaz said,

"If nobody can come inside because the line is all the way to the door, that's too many people."

"I gotta say, 'Nej," Jesper said as he retied his apron, "I agree with him on this one."

Kaz plunked the coffee down on the pickup counter, yelled the customer's name, and retook his place at the register. Jesper looked supremely disappointed when Kaz did not slap his proffered hand as he passed. He pointed to the kitchen through the swinging door.

"I'm gonna go check on Wylan and those muffins."

"Don’t get lost!" Nina called after him. Jesper paused in the doorway.

"Where am I gonna get lost?"

Nina batted her eyelashes at him.

"His eyes."

Jesper rolled his eyes, flashing her the finger discreetly as possible and ducked through the doors. Before they hired on Wylan a little over a month ago, Jesper had been in charge of making sure the baked goods stayed stocked. Wylan was pretty good at it by now; he said baking reminded him of chemistry, something he is apparently good at. Jesper just had a crush on him.

"Uh oh," Inej said. Kaz glanced at her. She pointed. 

Third in line stood Kaz's unspoken nemesis Zoya Nazyalensky and her partner-not-boyfriend Nikolai Lantsov. They were in the middle of some kind of political campaign. Kaz knew this because a) their pictures were all over the city and b) Zoya was always on the phone when she ordered her fancy double shot soy latte, or whatever the fuck. 

(He also knew exactly what they were running for, why they were running, and every detail in their campaign, including personal details that aren't on their Wikipedia page. But he couldn't let the others know he knew all this, because he'd never hear the end of it. Besides, he liked keeping people guessing on how much he did or did not know.)

Kaz swore under his breath as she approached, still talking into her phone with no intention of hanging up. Nikolai trailed behind her, tapping away at his phone, one fucking  _ air pod  _ in. Rich people, he cursed mentally, and a voice that sounded like Inej’s said,  _ but you want to be a rich person.  _ He gave not-Inej’s voice a mental middle finger. God. He needed therapy.

“Welcome to Crow Coffee, how can I help you?” Kaz asked flatly. Zoya didn’t even bat a fake eyelash at him. Were they fake? He had no idea. He just liked the idea of mentally roasting her eyelashes.

“... I know, Genya, but this has to be perfect, or we’ll never get the support we need,” Zoya said, inspecting her manicure. “I’d like triple shot vanilla soy macchiato. No, Genya, we need his support though - I can’t stand him either-”

Nikolai Lantsov leaned passed her and propped one hand on the counter. Kaz glared at his offending hand, but Nikolai beamed and said,

“I’ll take a large double double, and my friend here wants a-”

“Triple shot vanilla soy macchiato, I know,” Kaz said, just short of snapping at him.

Nikolai beamed harder.

“Excellent. If I could just pay, we’ll be out of your hair.”

Kaz didn’t ask if he had their frequent customers card. They didn’t. He refused to give them the satisfaction of a discount. Wordlessly, he rung them up, and went to make Zoya’s drink as Nina stepped up to take orders. Inej handed him Nikolai’s double double as he passed. He set the coffees down, made direct eye contact with Zoya and said,

“Nicholas and Zoey.”

Still no reaction when she descended on her caffeine with claws outstretched, Nikolai trailing in her wake. He’d “mispronounced” her name in every way he could think of. He’d even gotten Nina and Jesper to pitch in, but no matter what he called Zoya, she didn’t react. Kaz at least expected a reaction out of Nikolai, but he never got one from him either. 

“Kaz,” Inej said, bumping him with her hip as she passed, “quit scheming, you’re going to scare the customers.”

“Good,” Kaz grumbled, turning back to the register.

.

“I have a plan,” Kaz declared, throwing himself down in a chair at the breakroom table. He’d been on his feet all day and his leg was going to kill him. He threw a few pieces of paper on the table, stapled together. Inej groans into her cup of tea. 

“How could you possibly have gotten this together, it’s been twenty minutes since we closed the store,” Wylan said, sounding doubtful as he swept the floor. Kaz flicked his fingers at the younger boy.

“Don’t underestimate me if you want to get out of working with me unscathed.” 

Ignoring Nina’s  _ I’m unscathed, _ Kaz turned his attention back to Inej and Jesper seated at the table with him. He pushed Jesper’s heels kicked up on the tabletop out of his way and said,

“I know how to bring Zoya Nazyalensky down a peg or three.”

“Remind me why you hate her so much?” Nina called from where she rummaged through the fridge.

Kaz glared at her back. 

“What matters is that I have a plan to ruin her day.”

“Kaz, you better not be able to get arrested for this ‘plan,’” Inej said wearily, drawing air quotes around the last word.

“Don’t worry, it’s mostly harmless.”

Jesper flipped through the pages.

“This is- a diagnosis for lactose intolerance?” Jesper looked at Kaz. “Do I even want to know how you got this.”

“Probably not,” Kaz said, holding out a hand for it back. Inej glared at him, but as she opened her mouth to object, Kaz began speaking. “Listen, it’s only a mild lactose intolerance, the worst thing that could happen to her is shitting her pants during the press conference tomorrow on live televison.”

“Kaz, oh my gods, you can’t seriously be considering this,” Inej said, frowning. Kaz rolled his eyes. 

“I haven’t decided if I’m going to yet or not.”

“I’ll tell Matthias,” Nina threatened, cackling. Matthias was on trucks each morning, carrying in the heavy boxes of supplies for the day, and for some reason Nina decided she liked him. He, unfortunately for the rest of the Crows, had a stick so far up his ass, he choked on it. “Okay, but seriously, if you do give Zoya dairy instead of soy, you’d better burn those papers.”

“Obviously,” Kaz said, scratching his chin. “If we go through with this, whoever takes her order shouldn’t make her drink. We don’t want her thinking we did it on purpose.”

“I’m sure she’d know,” Inej said, rolling her eyes, but couldn’t quite hide the smirk. “She’s sniffed out tricker things than an accidental-on purpose swapage of soy for dairy.”

“Maybe I could come out and start training to make drinks,” Wylan offered from where he sat on the counter eating a leftover scone. “Then I make Zoya’s drink wrong and you blame it on it being my first time making that drink, or something.”

Everyone fell quiet as they stared at Wylan.

“What?” he asked. 

Jesper whistled appreciatively. 

“We should have gotten you involved in schemes sooner.”

Wylan kicked his feet and looked away, cheeks tinged pink.

Kaz rolled his eyes and redirected attention to the matter at hand.

“Either way, we need to make a decision.”

.

They did make a decision, but what it was, we may never find out. However, if Zoya Nazyalensky suddenly began hanging up her phone to give her order, that’s not any of our business. 

**Author's Note:**

> personally, i think kaz and the gang totally went through with it, but if that is morally distasteful to you, then we can pretend that they put up a sign or something that said something to the effect of "hang ur damn phones up so we can actually understand your order. thank you. -disgruntled employees of crow coffee"


End file.
